Talarico casts himself as a moderate who would put Texans’ needs over party allegiances amid close contest against Republican Ken Paxton

James Talarico, the Texas Democratic nominee for Senate, sat face to face with skeptical Republicans and independents voters who grilled him on a slew of contentious issues including Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, abortion and foreign aid, during a CNN town hall co-hosted by the Jubilee Media digital platform on Wednesday.

One voter, a young Republican activist who volunteered at the party’s midterm convention in Dallas last month and recently appeared on Fox News as a supporter of Talarico’s opponent, questioned the authenticity of Talarico’s faith, referencing a past remark where he described God as nonbinary.

Le premier duel entre les frères Hutson a été remporté par Cole et les Capitals.

Le Bleu-blanc-noir subit un blanchissage et une septième défaite à ses huit derniers matchs en MLS.

Neuf institutions financières, qui ont des activités aux États-Unis, sont citées dans le rapport.

Ukraine is seeking fresh funding for 2027 and says it is ready to deliver the reforms. Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi says Ukraine’s external budget financing need for 2027 exceeds $52 billion, with more than $32.6 billion still to be raised.

That money underwrites the basics of a country at war: the army, pensions, hospitals, and support for business, he notes. Defense and security alone will take almost 44 percent of GDP in the 2027 budget, and the gap comes as Russia keeps hammering the infrastructure that generates Ukraine’s own revenue.

“The defense capability of the country, the payment of pensions, the support of hospitals and business depend on these funds,” Koretskyi says.

The hole Russia keeps digging faster than Kyiv can fill it

Russia’s strikes widen the gap even as Kyiv tries to close it. Russia systematically attacks critical infrastructure, business, production and civilian sites, and the destruction and halted enterprises will leave tax revenues about $1.5 billion below forecast by the end of the year, he warns.

For instance, output of Ukraine's steel industry, one of the pillars of its wartime economy, fell 57.3% in August due to Russian strikes. This sector is Ukraine's second-largest foreign-currency earner, employing more than 70,000 people directly and another 250,000 in related industries, and paying close to $1 billion a year in taxes.

Beyond the budget itself, the off-budget needs of Ukraine’s Defense Forces for 2027 are estimated at $45 billion, or about 40 billion euros, a figure that sits on top of the $52 billion budget requirement, he says.

The reforms Kyiv must deliver to unlock the money

The money hinges on reforms Ukraine still has to deliver. In the next few days, the government is to approve all the decisions needed to continue financing.

“Ukraine continues to work on fulfilling its part of the commitments. This week, the government is expected to approve all the necessary decisions to ensure continued funding,” the Ukrainian prime minister says.

Meanwhile, the Parliament plans to consider the bills required under the support programs of the IMF, the World Bank and the EU.

Plusieurs parcs d'attractions, dont La Ronde et Canada's Wonderland, ont fermé des manèges par précaution.

Ukraine is handing its factories the right to shoot back at the Russian drones hunting them. Nearly 100 companies have joined Ukraine’s experimental program that allows private enterprises to operate their own air defenses, granting them authority to conduct air defense operations and form their own crews, the Defense Ministry says.

Russian drones strike Ukrainian factories, warehouses and power sites so relentlessly that the state cannot shield every one, so the Defense Ministry is enlisting the businesses being hit to defend themselves.

The program has grown quickly, from 24 companies in April to 81 by mid-September and nearly 100 now, and its crews have already destroyed a substantial number of Russian aerial targets.

The companies range from operators of critical infrastructure to state and private firms across the economy. The project is carried out under a Cabinet resolution dated 19 November 2025, which mobilizes enterprise resources to support Ukraine’s defense against air threats.

Civilian crews that answer to the Air Force, not themselves

These teams do not fire into a shared sky on their own. About 50 air-defense groups have been formed and are operating under the relevant Air Force commands, and crews from six enterprises are already carrying out combat missions, the ministry says. The rest are training or finishing preparation before they join.

As of 14 October, the groups have downed more than 60 aerial targets, mostly Russian drones, using interceptor drones and automated turrets with heavy machine guns, according to the ministry. The Air Force command sets each group’s targets based on its weapons and tasks, and, jointly with the company, defines its sector, personnel, and equipment.

Who pays, and who pulls the trigger

The arrangement splits cost and control. Some weapons the enterprises buy with their own money, holding end-user status, while a company can also ask the Air Force to lend arms and ammunition from military stocks.

Private air defense is one layer of a multi-tiered shield, meant to protect industrial capacity, critical infrastructure and civilian staff from systematic drone attacks. The crews began combat work in 2026.

Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies just clawed back millions for the state budget. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) and the State Property Fund have returned about $5.1 million to the state budget, the bureau says.

NABU and SAPO were created in 2015 after the Euromaidan revolution as independent bodies to fight high-level corruption, and their independence is a core condition for Ukraine's path to the EU. This recovery is the kind of concrete payoff that EU-backed reform was meant to produce.

Investigating one case, detectives and prosecutors found that the leadership of a regional branch of the State Property Fund had failed to act. Because of that inaction, the state risked losing millions of dollars.

To head off the loss, NABU and SAPO alerted the fund’s central leadership and gave it access to part of the investigation materials.

How the agencies turned a case into cash

The fix came from sharing what the investigation had uncovered. After working through the data, the State Property Fund took the necessary steps and secured the full budget amount, the bureau says.

NABU and SAPO continue to cooperate with other state bodies to protect the country’s economic interests and prevent corruption crimes, the bureau adds. The agencies framed the case as proof that enforcement, beyond investigation alone, can return money the state would otherwise lose.

Why these agencies matter beyond one case

The recovery lands at a fraught moment for the two institutions. Their independence has been under sustained pressure, and in July 2026 parliament briefly stripped it before mass protests and EU warnings forced a reversal.

In 2025, Brussels tied as much as 50 billion euros in aid and the pace of accession talks to the agencies’ autonomy, treating NABU and SAPO as pillars of the rule-of-law reforms Ukraine promised on its way into the bloc.

The Russians are pouring troops into a key sector just southeast of the town of Dobropillia in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast, threatening to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses and march one settlement closer to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the last two big free cities in Donetsk.

But the Russians' push toward Dobropillia isn't without cost. Russian losses in this sector are "colossal," according to the mapper Playfra. And every soldier the Kremlin deploys along the Dobropillia axis is a soldier it can't deploy elsewhere.

And that may help explain why the Russians are falling back in two other key sectors, in northern Donetsk Oblast and in neighboring Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. The Dobropillia axis is the Russians' clear priority. For the Ukrainians, that's an opportunity to attack elsewhere.

Dobropillia, a former mining town with a pre-war population of around 28,000, is now a fortress. It anchors Ukrainian positions along the highway that threads northeast to Kramatorsk.

Russia has attacked here before. In August 2025, Russian troops pushed a salient toward the Dobropillia–Kramatorsk highway, and Ukrainian counterattacks cut it apart. By October that year, President Volodymyr Zelensky put Russian losses on the Dobropillia front at about 13,000.

Ukrainian military analyst Kostiantyn Mashovets describes the push on Dobropillia as the southern flank of a Russian operation to envelop the whole Sloviansk–Kramatorsk urban area. The other approaches are harder going. From the southeast, the Russians are blocked by stubborn Ukrainian forces still clinging to positions in the ruins of Kostiantynivka. From the north, starting this spring, the Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps rolled back 18 months of Russian gains.

For an army that's been struggling to complete its conquest of Donetsk, to say nothing of breaking through in other front-line oblasts, Dobropillia has become the priority.

And that's why the Russians are channeling fresh forces into the Dobropillia sector. Part of the 41st Combined Arms Army and units of its 90th Guards Tank Division are now fighting there, Mashovets wrote on 9 October, and the Russian command keeps feeding fresh assault infantry into the sector through the village of Nove Shakhove despite heavy losses. The open-source account Unit Observer tracked the buildup as early as September.

Potentially tens of thousands of troops from those formations join the main forces of the 2nd and 51st Combined Arms Armies, according to Mashovets, as well as elements of the Russian naval infantry, facing the Ukrainian 1st Azov Corps and 19th Army Corps around Dobropillia.

The reinforcements give Russian commanders more options. Mashovets expects the 51st CAA to push south and southwest of Dobropillia and the 2nd CAA toward Raksha and Sviatohorivka, enveloping the town and cutting its supply routes from Bilozerske before any direct assault. The neighboring 8th CAA is fighting around Kostiantynivka. The Russians' immediate goal is "to maintain this offensive pressure from summer into the fall," Unit Observer wrote, setting conditions for a possible siege of Kramatorsk next year.

The outlook for the Ukrainian defenders of Dobropillia is "worsening," Playfra warned on 13 October:

The Ukrainians aren't without options, Playfra explained. They should double down on their current strategy of saturating the fields around Dobropillia with drones in a ring at least 2 to 3 km deep, forestalling large-scale Russian movements until the winter strips the leaves off the trees, depriving the Russians of their best cover from overhead surveillance. This could buy Dobropillia "much more time," Playfra predicted.

Mashovets puts a date on how long Dobropillia has to hold. If it and Druzhkivka, the town just south of Kramatorsk, hold until mid-to-late December, he wrote, the whole Russian plan for Sloviansk and Kramatorsk would collapse and have to be rewritten almost from scratch.

Help isn't coming

Just don't expect a lot of Ukrainian reinforcements along the Dobropillia axis. Many of Ukraine's best troops are busy attacking.

Taking advantage of the surge of Russian manpower in the direction of Dobropillia, Ukrainian forces have counterattacked where the Russians are weakest: in northern Donetsk Oblast and also in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, just south of Donetsk.

In months of carefully planned assaults supported by ground robots and intensive drone strikes, Ukrainian forces have liberated hundreds of square kilometers in northern Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk. The Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps' Operation Vivaldi in northern Donetsk largely removed the immediate northern threat to Sloviansk and neighboring Kramatorsk.

But it didn't do anything to help in the direction of Dobropillia, where the Russians have many more troops, much more firepower, and—equally importantly—a singular focus: closing the southern jaw around the last big free cities in Donetsk.

Explore further

Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps took the lessons of the failed 2023 counteroffensive into Operation Vivaldi. It fought small, and won.

Alleged assault follows report of gang-rape at frat house at Cornell, which ignited national uproar and criticism online

A 21-year-old woman reported being sexually assaulted last weekend at a fraternity house near the University of Chicago, as Greek life nationwide faces renewed scrutiny for recurrent misconduct.

The incident allegedly took place on Sunday at about 1.50am at the off-campus Alpha Epsilon Pi residence, according to a university daily crime log.

Exclusives

America has sided with Russia against Ukraine. Europe should stop pretending and build a coalition against Russia, China, and even the US. In three days, Washington sanctioned the court that issued Putin’s arrest warrant, lifted its own sanctions on Russian diesel, called for Zelenskyy to step down, and declared an “energy ceasefire” that asks only Ukraine to stop firing. These are not the acts of an ally.

Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps took the lessons of the failed 2023 counteroffensive into Operation Vivaldi. It fought small, and won.. Five months in, it has erased 18 months of Russian advances toward Sloviansk.

Military

Ukraine blocks Russia from outflanking its fortress cities in Donbas, retaking 277 square kilometers and hitting 8,000 Russian troops. “Four seasons of ‘Vivaldi’ are complete. But the music continues. Until we meet again!” the Third Army Corps noted.

Intelligence and technology

“Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government”: Musk says Trump, not SpaceX, is behind cut hitting Ukraine. The ordinary Starlink on drones is capped at about 160 km/h, too slow for some missions, so faster flight needs the military StarShield version.

“Trump and Musk must be held accountable”: US senator warns Starlink network failing over Ukraine could cripple its shield against Russian missiles and drones. Ukraine’s air defense leans on Musk’s Starlink.

“Trump was looking for any opportunity to undermine our defense capabilities,” top Ukrainian volunteer, who supplied 291,502 FPV drones to front, says of sudden Starlink limit. Ukraine had stopped hitting Russian oil refineries as Trump asked, yet the Starlink limit still landed.

NATO country that pays for Kyiv’s Starlink warns Musk as his cap breaks Ukraine’s drone missions: “As your European customers, we are watching you”. “Are you playing politics with your products again?”, Poland’s foreign minister challenges Musk

Planned capacity of 12,000 interceptors a year, under 100 seconds to target: US firm pitches a low-cost drone killer. The fastest model cruises at 540 km/h, which may be enough to catch Russia’s jet Gerans, a defense news outlet suggests..

Ukraine-NATO AI built to forecast Russia’s front-line drone attacks from past data and weather is ready to plug into the army. Drone types, areas, time windows: the model was tested on real data. A second tool ranks artillery plans and is now in trials.

New Starlink restrictions disrupt Ukrainian drone missions. Kyiv adviser says move is tied to “political situation”. SpaceX may have imposed the restrictions at the Trump administration’s request, activist Serhii Sternenko suggested.

Ukrainian OSINT channel: Russia turned a bare field into a Geran-5 launch site in a month—and drones are already arriving. Eight launcher spots, 32 drone-prep pads, and a layout the channel likens to Tsymbulova, a Russian drone base Ukraine keeps striking.

Ukraine sent a spiked tank and a Bradley into Russian drone fire. The spikes held, and Ukraine’s own drones got them home. Armored vehicles aren't dead on arrival anymore on the drone-patrolled battlefield. Friendly drones can escort them to the fight.

International

“He thinks Ukraine is a weak link and that it needs to be squeezed into giving in”: diplomat on why Trump pressures Kyiv, not Moscow. Trump is using aid and intelligence as levers over Kyiv.

“It finances an economy geared toward total war”—Ukraine’s third president on the Russian diesel Washington just cleared. Viktor Yushchenko invokes the Budapest Memorandum and Pearl Harbor days after the US waived sanctions on Russian diesel until April 2027.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russia attacked Ukrainian retailer Epicentr’s warehouse 10 times in one day, destroying about 85% of goods, company says. The Khmelnytskyi hub had been effectively Epicentr’s only surviving large warehouse complex, after Russia destroyed its two largest logistics complexes in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast.

1,125 Kyiv residents injured in Russian attacks since the start of 2026, more than a third of them in five weeks from late August, Kyiv health chief says. Kyiv emergency medical teams have responded to 1,920 calls related to Russian attacks since the start of the year, according to the city’s health department head.

Ukraine warns of “a new type of humanitarian crisis” as Russia aims at its biggest cities. Even border and frontline oblasts are further along on resilience plans than the capital, Zelenskyy says.

Russia bombs Sloviansk’s warming center as the day’s attacks wound four Red Cross workers. The 250-kg bomb injured eight people and damaged five apartment blocks, and the wounded workers belonged to a Red Cross branch that had relocated from Lyman for safety

Three days after Washington announced an energy ceasefire, Russia fires 39 ballistic missiles at Ukraine’s grid. Zelenskyy says Russia has never shown America such disrespect. At least 600,000 people lost power, and four died in Kyiv.

New developments

Russia-linked bot networks kept their weekly rhythm after drone strikes on three Yandex data centers—disinformation monitor LetsData. One network that spread fake Die Welt sites now pushes a fake Ukrinform site about mobilization in Ukraine, its analysts found.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Andy Burnham reinforces support for Ukraine following talks with Volodymyr Zelensky